Cyclic redundancy check circuit for use with self-synchronous scramblers

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream. At least two logic gates receive inputs from a plurality of circuit elements. The plurality of circuit elements are coupled to receive and store a portion of a bit stream. At the end of a CRC error detection division operation, each circuit element corresponds to a bit in a bit error pattern syndrome and the logic gates determine if the contents of the circuit elements match specific bit error patterns. The circuit causes the state of at least one bit in the bit stream to change if the contents of the plurality of circuit elements match one of the specific bit patterns. The circuit is advantageous in that it may detect single bit errors, and double bit errors that may be caused by error duplication characteristic of a scrambler.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application, now abandoned Ser. No. 10/147,880, filed on May 20, 2002, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF INVENTION

This invention relates to the error detection and correction by a 16-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC-16) generation circuit.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) is an important aspect in the error-detecting capabilities of many protocols, such as the Ethernet local area network, protocol. CRC provides a number of bits (usually 16 or 32) generated from, and appended to the end of, a block of data to provide error detection. A message receiver generates a CRC from the block of data and compares it to the CRC appended to the received message. If the appended CRC matches the generated CRC, then there is a high probability that the received message has not been corrupted.

One standard 16-bit generator polynomial is represented by x¹⁶+x¹²+x⁵+1. The polynomial represents the binary number 10001000000100001—a one bit is in positions 16, 12, 5, and 0. The CRC is the remainder after binary (modulo 2) division of the message by the generator polynomial. For Ethernet CRC, the 32-bit generator polynomial is represented by x³²+x²⁶+x²³+x²²+x¹⁶+x¹²+X¹¹+x¹⁰+X⁸+x⁷+x⁵+x⁴+x²+x+1. Typically, a 16-bit CRC generator polynomial is used with messages of less than 4 Kbytes. A 32-bit CRC generator is used for messages up to 64 kbytes in length.

The CRC is usually performed by the data link protocol and a calculated CRC is appended to the end of the data link layer frame. The CRC is calculated by performing a modulo 2 division of the data by a generator polynomial and recording the remainder after division.

Although this division may be performed in software, it is commonly performed using a shift register and exclusive or X-OR gates. The hardware solution for implementing a CRC is much simpler than a software approach. The CRC-16 is able to detect all single errors, all double errors, and all errors with bursts less than 16 bits in length. The previously-standardized CRC-16 generator polynomials can also detect all odd numbers of errors, at the expense of less detection capability for even numbers of errors.

On an aside, the CRC is the only field which is by convention sent most significant bit first. To further clarify, the first bit of the CRC-16 to be sent is the bit corresponding to position 16 in the CRC field, the most significant bit (MSB), and the last bit being the bit corresponding to position 0 in CRC field, the least significant bit (LSB).

As previously mentioned, CRC is pervasive throughout most data traffic. Recently, a protocol, known as the Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), utilizes a CRC-16 for error detection and correction in the frame header and payload. GFP also utilizes an X⁴³+1 slef-synchronous scrambler, for receiver synchronization protection. The GFP protocol has recently been standardized by the International Telecommunications Union—Telecommunications (ITU-T) as Recommendation G. 7041.

To date, GFP has been implemented as a generic mechanism to adapt traffic from higher-layer signals over a synchronous transport network. There are two types of GFP, the frame-mapped GFP and the transparent GFP. The frame-mapped GFP enables a signal frame to be received and mapped in its entirety into one or more GFP frames. The transparent GFP mapping involves decoding block-coded signal frames and then mapping the decoded signal frames into a fixed-length GFP frame, having only received a block-coded version of the signal frame.

Prior to transmitting a GFP frame, the payload portion of the GFP frame is normally scrambled. Frames are scrambled to protect a user from other malicious users who may try to cause loss of receiver synchronization at the physical layer. For the SONET/SDH protocol (Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy), self-synchronized scramblers are utilized to create more physical layer transitions to aid timing recovery at the receiver. The frame-synchronized scrambler was added to make it much more difficult for a malicious user to defeat the effects of the frame synchronous scrambler.

A frame-synchronized scrambler is one in which the transmitted data is exclusive-ORed bit-by-bit with the output of a pseudo-random sequence generator with the sequence generator being reset to a known state at the beginning of every frame. The frame-synchronized scramblers are very effective in increasing the transition density to an acceptable level for typical traffic. One drawback of a frame-synchronized scrambler is that it is a known, relatively short (2⁷-1) pseudo-random sequence and it is possible for a malicious subscriber to attempt to mimic this pattern within the data he sends. The result is that if the subscriber data lines up with the SONET/SDH scrambler correctly, a long string can occur with no transitions, which in turn can cause the receiver to fail. The phenomenon was observed with early ATM and POS systems and was addressed from the outset with GFP. The solution used for each of these three protocols is a self-synchronous scrambler over the payload region of the cell/frame.

A self-synchronous scrambler is one in which the data is exclusive-ORed with a delayed version of itself on a bit-by-bit basis. The specific scrambler used for ATM, POS, and GFP exclusive-ORs the input data with scrambler output data after a 43 bit delay termed the scrambler polynomial. The descrambler reverses the process by multiplying the received signal by the same scrambler polynomial. The advantage to such a scrambler in this application is that it is very hard for a malicious user to duplicate due to its never having a known reset point. The value of the scrambler state is a function of the previous data rather than the position of the data within the SONET/SDH frame. The drawback to a self-synchronous scrambler is that any errors occurring on the transmission channel will be duplicated 43 bits later by the descrambler. As a result, an error check code over the data will have to deal with twice the bit error rate as that experienced by the transmission channel.

The duplicated bit error, hereinafter termed the “double bit error”, requires that the decoded CRC detect the double bit errors, as well as any single bit errors, without compromising the probability of detection. In view of aforementioned shortcomings of the self-synchronous scrambler, the present invention seeks to provide a circuit for detecting and correcting both single bit errors and double bit errors based on a plurality of conditions being met. The present invention further seeks to provide a probability of error detection that is equivalent to the probability of error detection had the double errors not been introduced by the descrambler.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream. The circuit consist of a plurality of circuit elements, an least operation circuit means, and at least two logic gates. The logic gates receive inputs from the plurality of circuit elements. The plurality of circuit elements are coupled to receive and store a portion of a bit stream. The operation circuit elements perform bitwise operations on the contents of at least two of the circuit elements. The bitwise operations are dictated by a CRC polynomial and are used to perform the CRC error detection division operation. At the end of the division process for the data to be checked, each circuit element corresponds to a bit in a bit error pattern syndrome, the logic gates determine if the contents of the circuit elements match specific bit error patterns. The circuit causes the state of at least one bit in the bit stream to change if the contents of the plurality of circuit elements match one of the specific bit patterns.

The present invention is advantageous in that it may detect single bit errors, and double bits errors which may be caused by error duplication characteristic of a scrambler. The circuit utilizes a minimum of logic gates, two AND gates to provide the error detection and correction not known in the prior art.

In a first aspect, the present invention provides a circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream, the circuit including at least two logical gates that determine if at least one of a plurality of conditions is present, each one of said plurality of conditions indicating at least one error in said bit stream and activating at least one of the at least two logical gates to change the state of a specific bit in said bit stream.

In a second aspect, the present invention provides a circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream, said circuit comprising:

-   -   a plurality of bit circuit elements coupled to receive and store         said bit stream, each bit circuit element corresponding to a         specific bit in a bit pattern;     -   at least one operation circuit element for performing operations         between contents of at least two of said bit circuit elements;         and     -   at least two logic gates for determining if contents of said bit         circuit elements match specific bit patterns at least one of         said at least two logic gate receiving inputs from said bit         circuit elements;     -   wherein an output of said circuit causes a state of at least one         bit in said bit stream to change if contents of said bit circuit         elements match at least one of said plurality of specific bit         patterns; and     -   wherein said bit patterns correspond to errors that have         occurred in the transmitted data.

In a third aspect, the present invention provides a circuit for detecting errors in a bit stream, the circuit comprising:

-   -   operation means for performing bitwise operations between at         least a portion of said bit stream and a bit pattern derived         from said bit stream; and     -   detection means for detecting if a bitwise operation between at         least a portion of said bit stream and said bit pattern derived         from said bit stream produces a result indicating at least one         error in said bit stream;     -   wherein said operation means implements a bitwise operation         corresponding to.         B(x)=Rem(D(x)/G(x)     -    where         -   D(x) is said at least a first portion of said bit stream;         -   G(x) is said bit pattern derived from said bit stream; and         -   B(x) is a remainder of a division operation between D(x) and             G(x);     -   such that said detection means detects when B(x) does not equal         0.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a known self-synchronous scrambler and descrambler;

FIG. 2 illustrates a known x⁴³+1 self-synchronous scrambler;

FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of a first circuit for detecting and correcting single and double bit errors according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic representation of a second circuit for detecting and correcting single and double bit errors according to the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a circuit for an 8-bit wide parallel implementation according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates both a x^(n)+1 self-synchronous scrambler 10 and descrambler 20 as discussed in the background to the invention. As previously explained, the x^(n)+1 scrambler 10 receives data in the form of a bit stream at the input 30. The data is exclusive-ORed 40 with a delayed version of itself. The delayed bits are illustrated as bit circuit elements, D1, D2, . . . . Dn. The scrambled data is output at 50 by the exclusive-OR operation after an n-bit delay. The scrambler operation is expressed as an x^(n)+1 polynomial.

In FIG. 1, the x^(n)+1 descrambler 20 performs the reverse operation from the scrambler 20. The descrambler 20 multiplies the received data at the input 60 by the same scrambler polynomial. The descrambler outputs the descrambled data 70 serially after the first set of n bits have been received.

FIG. 2 illustrates a x⁴³+1 self-sychronous scrambler 100 of the prior art. As shown in the x^(n)+1 descrambler of FIG. 1, the x⁴³+1 self-sychronous scrambler 100 multiplies the received input bit stream by the scrambler polynomial, x⁴³+1. The drawback of the self-sychronous scrambler, in general, is that any errors occurring on the transmission channel will be duplicated n bits later in the bit stream. In the case of the x⁴³+1 self-sychronous scrambler, any errors are duplicated 43 bits later by the descrambler 100. A single-bit error is illustrated in a possible output bit stream 120, whereas a double-bit error is shown in another possible output bit stream 130. While the descrambler 100 does duplicate any bit errors, a double bit error may not be output within the same data block, or data frame, of descrambled bits. In other words, the first error may be in a preceding data block while the double error is part of the next data block. Furthermore, while it is possible to have double bit errors within a common data block, it is further possible to have triple errors due to bit error placement within the data block. To clarify, in a given data block there may be an error and a duplicate error and in addition, another bit error may occur due to boundary cases. Boundary cases involve triple bit errors from a preceding or successive block, where bit errors from a preceding block are extend across frames into a preceding/successive block. These triple errors, while random, are detectable by the CRC-16.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a circuit for implementing a CRC-16 polynomial for triple bit error detection with improved single bit error and double bit error detection after descrambling.

FIG. 3 illustrates a circuit 200 for detecting and correcting single and double bit errors according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The first embodiment is intended for an initial proposed transparent GFP superblock CRC-16. The circuit 200 consists of a plurality of bit circuit elements D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9, D10, D11, D12, D13, D14, D15, D16, two logic AND gates 210, 220, an OR gate 230, and a plurality of input bit stream circuit elements D1, D2, . . . , D493, D494, . . . , D536, as shown in FIG. 3. The bit circuit elements may be implemented as bit registers, or other circuit elements such as flip-flops or transistors. The CRC polynomial implemented in the circuit 200 is G(x)=x¹⁶+x¹⁵+x¹⁴+x¹²+x¹⁰+x⁸+x⁷+x⁴+x³+x+1.

According to the circuit 200 of FIG. 3, the input stream is a GFP superblock, essentially a 536 bit block, which is input into circuit elements D1 through D536. On a bit-by-bit basis, the D1 through D16 bit circuit elements receive input from the input stream. The circuit elements are coupled to operation circuit elements 240A, 240B, . . . , 240H, 240I, which provide bitwise operations dictated by the G(x). The first AND gate 210 receives inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations between specific selected bits. If the bits at the first AND gate 210 inputs match a predetermined bit pattern then the AND gate 210 is activated. Similarly, the second AND gate 220 receives inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations between selected bits, specific to the second AND gate 220. If the bits at the second AND gate 220 inputs match a predetermined bit pattern then the AND gate 220 is activated. The OR gate 230 receives an input from both first AND gate 210 and the second gate 220. The OR gate is activated by a predetermined output from either or both AND gates 210 and 220. Upon activation, the OR gate 230 changes a specific bit in the bit stream. In this case, the OR gate 230 would invert the first bit, stored in the D536 circuit element, to correct the single error. If a positive output is derived from the second AND gate 220, then a double error has been detected and the bit located 43 bits behind at D493 is inverted.

The circuit operation may be expressed as the following equation: B(x)=Rem(D(x)/G(x)

-   -   where     -   D(x) is said at least a portion of the 536 bit block;     -   G(x) is a bit pattern derived from the bit stream according to         the polynomial;     -   B(x) is a remainder of a division operation between D(x) and         G(x); and     -   Rem is the remainder from the modulo division of D(x) by G(x);         such that the circuit detects when B(x) does not equal 0.     -   The operation may be designed as a nested IF/THEN loop     -   If Rem (D(x)/G(x))=a double bit error pattern then flip bit 1         AND flip the bit which is n bits behind bit 1     -   If Rem (D(x)/G(x))=a single bit error pattern then flip bit 1.     -   where n is derived from the scrambler polynomial, X^(n)+1.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, n may be 43 if the X⁴³+1 scrambler polynomial is utilized in conjunction with the circuitry of the present invention.

In FIG. 3, the CRC-16 polynomial G(x) dictate the bitwise operation over the 536 bit GFP superblock. According to limitations of the CRC-16 error detection, the best possible error detection capability of the CRC-16 polynomial is triple error detection. With triple error detection capability, single error correction is also possible. In order to preserve the triple error detecting capability, the CRC-16 generator polynomial must have no common factors with the payload scrambler polynomial. The x⁴³+1 payload scrambler polynomial factors into: x ⁴³+1=(x+1)(x ¹⁴ +x ¹¹ +x ¹⁰ +x ⁹ +x ⁸ +x ⁷ +x ⁶ +x ⁵ +x ⁴ +x ^(3+x) ¹) (x ¹⁴ +x ¹² +x ¹⁰ +x ⁷ +x ⁴ +x ²+1)(x ¹⁴ +x ¹³ +x ¹¹ +x ⁷ +x ³ +x ¹).

All of the known standard CRC-16 generator polynomials, have x+1 as a factor, and would therefore suffer degraded performance due to duplicate errors. In order to also provide double error detecting capability the CRC generator polynomial must have a factor that is a primitive polynomial with a degree of at least 10. To further provide a triple bit error detection, a CRC-16 generator polynomial with triple error detection capability was utilized. According to the present invention, it was determined that various CRC-16 generator polynomials met both the double error detection and the no common scrambler factors criteria. The CRC polynomial G(x) of FIG. 3, and that of FIG. 4, are examples of CRC polynomials which met the above criteria.

As explained in the background, each single transmission error will result in either one or two superblock errors in the descrambled data. Due to the feedback tap on the x⁴³+1 descrambler, a second error is always created exactly 43 bit after the bit affected by the transmission bit error. If both of these errors fall within the data of the same superblock, then the CRC-16 must cope with two errors. It is possible, however, for the two errors to occur around a superblock boundary where one of the errors appears in each superblock. Errors occurring at boundaries is discussed in detail in a technical paper T1X1.5/2001-094, “Impact of x⁴³+1 Scrambler on the Error Detection Capabilities of Ethernet CRC,” standards contribution from Norival Figueira, Nortel Networks, March 2001, which incorporated herein by reference. A more rigorous theoretical analysis is to be found in “Analysis of the Interaction Between CRC Error Detecting Polynomials and Self-Synchronous Payload Scramblers”, Steven S. Gorshe, PhD Dissertation, Oregon State University, USA, 2002.

In general, single error correction is possible with a linear cyclic code as long as each possible error pattern leads to a unique syndrome at the decoder. For a CRC, the syndrome created by the bit error pattern is the remainder calculated in the division of the data block by the CRC generator polynomial. A remainder other than zero indicates the presence of an error. In order to preserve the capability of correcting single transmission errors, the syndromes (remainders) must be unique for each possible single error and 43-bit-spaced double error pattern. The unique syndromes allow the decoder to know the original error pattern, which is what makes the correction possible. For each of the CRC-16 polynomials that met the above triple error detecting criteria, bit error patterns were calculated for each possible single error and 43-bit-spaced double errors.

The following are the single-bit error patterns and double-bit error patterns which met the following criteria.

According to FIG. 3, single-bit error patterns and double-bit error patterns are detected by the first and second AND gates to determine whether single-bit errors and double-bit errors have occurred.

The single-bit error patterns (Syndrome A) and the double bit patterns (Syndrome B) are as follows:

Syndrome A 0000000000000001 0000000000000010 0000000000000100 0000000000001000 0000000000010000 0000000000100000 0000000001000000 0000000010000000 0000000100000000 0000001000000000 0000010000000000 0000100000000000 0001000000000000 0010000000000000 0100000000000000 1000000000000000 1001010000011111 1011110000100001 1110110001011101 0100110010100101 1001100101001010 1010011010001011 1101100100001001 0010011000001101 0100110000011010 1001100000110100 1010010001110111 1101110011110001 0010110111111101 0101101111111010 1011011111110100 1111101111110111 0110001111110001 1100011111100010 0001101111011011 0011011110110110 0110111101101100 1101111011011000 0010100110101111 0101001101011110 1010011010111100 1101100101100111 0010011011010001 0100110110100010 1001101101000100 1010001010010111 1101000100110001 0011011001111101 0110110011111010 1101100111110100 0010011111110111 0100111111101110 1001111111011100 1010101110100111 1100001101010001 0001001010111101 0010010101111010 0100101011110100 1001010111101000 1011111111001111 1110101110000001 0100001100011101 1000011000111010 1001100001101011 1010010011001001 1101110110001101 0010111100000101 0101111000001010 1011110000010100 1110110000110111 0100110001110001 1001100011100010 1010010111011011 1101111110101001 0010101101001101 0101011010011010 1010110100110100 1100111001110111 0000100011110001 0001000111100010 0010001111000100 0100011110001000 1000111100010000 1000101000111111 1000000001100001 1001010011011101 1011110110100101 1110111101010101 0100101010110101 1001010101101010 1011111011001011 1110100110001001 0100011100001101 1000111000011010 1000100000101011 1000010001001001 1001110010001101 1010110100000101 1100111000010101 0000100000110101 0001000001101010 0010000011010100 0100000110101000 1000001101010000 1001001010111111 1011000101100001 1111011011011101 0111100110100101 1111001101001010 0111001010001011 1110010100010110 0101111000110011 1011110001100110 1110110011010011 0100110110111001 1001101101110010 1010001011111011 1101000111101001 0011011111001101 0110111110011010 1101111100110100 0010101001110111 0101010011101110 1010100111011100 1100011110100111 0001101101010001 0011011010100010 0110110101000100 1101101010001000 0010000100001111 0100001000011110 1000010000111100 1001110001100111 1010110011010001 1100110110111101 0000111101100101 0001111011001010 0011110110010100 0111101100101000 1111011001010000 0111100010111111 1111000101111110 0111011011100011 1110110111000110 0100111110010011 1001111100100110 1010101001010011 1100000010111001 0001010101101101 0010101011011010 0101010110110100 1010101101101000 1100001011001111 0001000110000001 0010001100000010 0100011000000100 1000110000001000 1000110000001111 1000110000000001 1000110000011101 1000110000100101 1000110001010101 1000110010110101 1000110101110101 1000111011110101 1000100111110101 1000011111110101 1001101111110101 1010001111110101 1101001111110101 0011001111110101 0110011111101010 1100111111010100 0000101110110111 0001011101101110 0010111011011100 0101110110111000 1011101101110000 1110001011111111 0101000111100001 1010001111000010 1101001110011011 0011001100101001 0110011001010010 1100110010100100 0000110101010111 0001101010101110 0011010101011100 0110101010111000 1101010101110000 0011111011111111 0111110111111110 1111101111111100 0110001111100111 1100011111001110 0001101110000011 0011011100000110 0110111000001100 1101110000011000 0010110000101111 0101100001011110 1011000010111100 1111010101100111 0111111011010001 1111110110100010 0110111101011011 1101111010110110 0010100101110011 0101001011100110 1010010111001100 1101111110000111 0010101100010001 0101011000100010 1010110001000100 1100110010010111 0000110100110001 0001101001100010 0011010011000100 0110100110001000 1101001100010000 0011001000111111 0110010001111110 1100100011111100 0000010111100111 0000101111001110 0001011110011100 0010111100111000 0101111001110000 1011110011100000 1110110111011111 0100111110100001 1001111101000010 1010101010011011 1100000100101001 0001011001001101 0010110010011010 0101100100110100 1011001001101000 1111000011001111 0111010110000001 1110101100000010 0100001000011011 1000010000110110 1001110001110011 1010110011111001 1100110111101101 0000111111000101 0001111110001010 0011111100010100 0111111000101000 1111110001010000 0110110010111111 1101100101111110 0010011011100011 0100110111000110 1001101110001100 1010001100000111 1101001000010001 0011000000111101 0110000001111010 1100000011110100 0001010111110111 0010101111101110 0101011111011100 1010111110111000 1100101101101111 0000001011000001 0000010110000010 0000101100000100 0001011000001000 0010110000010000 0101100000100000 1011000001000000 1111010010011111 0111110100100001 1111101001000010 0110000010011011 1100000100110110 0001011001110011 0010110011100110 0101100111001100 1011001110011000 1111001100101111 0111001001000001 1110010010000010 0101110100011011 1011101000110110 1110000001110011 0101010011111001 1010100111110010 1100011111111011 0001101111101001 0011011111010010 0110111110100100 1101111101001000 0010101010001111 0101010100011110 1010101000111100 1100000001100111 0001010011010001 0010100110100010 0101001101000100 1010011010001000 1101100100001111 0010011000000001 0100110000000010 1001100000000100 1010010000010111 1101110000110001 0010110001111101 0101100011111010 1011000111110100 1111011111110111 0111101111110001 1111011111100010 0111101111011011 1111011110110110 0111101101110011 1111011011100110 0111100111010011 1111001110100110 0111001101010011 1110011010100110 0101100101010011 1011001010100110 1111000101010011 0111011010111001 1110110101110010 0100111011111011 1001110111110110 1010111111110011 1100101111111001 0000001111101101 0000011111011010 0000111110110100 0001111101101000 0011111011010000 0111110110100000 1111101101000000 0110001010011111 1100010100111110 0001111001100011 0011110011000110 0111100110001100 1111001100011000 0111001000101111 1110010001011110 0101110010100011 1011100101000110 1110011010010011 0101100100111001 1011001001110010 1111000011111011 0111010111101001 1110101111010010 0100001110111011 1000011101110110 1001101011110011 1010000111111001 1101011111101101 0011101111000101 0111011110001010 1110111100010100 0100101000110111 1001010001101110 1011110011000011 1110110110011001 0100111100101101 1001111001011010 1010100010101011 1100010101001001 0001111010001101 0011110100011010 0111101000110100 1111010001101000 0111110011001111 1111100110011110 0110011100100011 1100111001000110 0000100010010011 0001000100100110 0010001001001100 0100010010011000 1000100100110000 1000011001111111 1001100011100001 1010010111011101 1101111110100101 0010101101010101 0101011010101010 1010110101010100 1100111010110111 0000100101110001 0001001011100010 0010010111000100 0100101110001000 1001011100010000 1011101000111111 1110000001100001 0101010011011101 1010100110111010 1100011101101011 0001101011001001 0011010110010010 0110101100100100 1101011001001000 0011100010001111 0111000100011110 1110001000111100 0101000001100111 1010000011001110 1101010110000011 0011111100011001 0111111000110010 1111110001100100 0110110011010111 1101100110101110 0010011101000011 0100111010000110 1001110100001100 1010111000000111 1100100000010001 0000010000111101 0000100001111010 0001000011110100 0010000111101000 0100001111010000 1000011110100000 1001101101011111 1010001010100001 1101000101011101 0011011010100101 0110110101001010 1101101010010100 0010000100110111 0100001001101110 1000010011011100 1001110110100111 1010111101010001 1100101010111101 0000000101100101 0000001011001010 0000010110010100 0000101100101000 0001011001010000 0010110010100000 0101100101000000 1011001010000000 1111000100011111 0111011000100001 1110110001000010 0100110010011011 1001100100110110 1010011001110011 1101100011111001 0010010111101101 0100101111011010 1001011110110100 1011101101110111 1110001011110001 0101000111111101 1010001111111010 1101001111101011 0011001111001001 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The above explanation of the present invention, as embodied in circuit 200 of FIG. 3, has assumed that positive logic is utilized. Positive bit logic was applied in detecting and correcting errors based on the outputs derived from both bitwise operations and bit logic operations. For example, a binary output of 1 at an AND gate indicates an error. However, if negative logic is utilized in the circuit 200, a binary output of O at the AND gate 210 would indicate an error as well.

FIG. 4 illustrates a circuit 300 for detecting and correcting single and double bit errors according to a second embodiment of the present invention. The second embodiment is intended for a final version transparent GFP superblock CRC-16. The circuit 300 differs from that of FIG. 3, in that bitwise operations are dictated by a different G(x) polynomial. The CRC polynomial implemented in this circuit 300 is G(x)=x¹⁶+x¹⁵+x¹⁴+x¹²+x¹⁰+x⁴+x³+x²+x+1.

It should be mentioned that while the circuits of FIGS. 3 and 4 detect double bit errors generated by a descrambler, the circuits of the present invention detect single bit, double bit, and triple bit errors derived from any number of other sources. The 536 bit block need not be derived from a descrambler, such as is used on a GFP CRC-16. The circuit of the present invention may derive a 536-bit superblock, prior to processing by the circuit of the present invention. Furthermore, the art that the present invention may be embodied in other circuitry. For example, additional AND gates may be utilized to perform error detection in both circuits 200 and 300 of FIGS. 3 and 4.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a circuit 400 for an 8-bit wide parallel implementation according to a third embodiment of the present invention. As compared to the serial bit implementation of FIGS. 3 and 4, the error detection logic 410 outputs an 8-bit wide output to the OR gate 420. In an 8-bit wide parallel implementation, errors are detected for an 8-bit wide block. The single and double errors are corrected in the same manner as in the implementation of FIG. 4 with the advantage that operating on 8-bit data blocks allows the circuit to operate at ⅛ the data path clock speed of a serial implementation such as in FIGS. 3 and 4. The data path clock speed reduction is a significant advantage for high-speed data transmission.

In FIG. 5, the process implemented by the circuit 400 is similar to that of FIGS. 3 and 4. The parallel CRC-16 generator consists of a bit circuit elements which are coupled to sequentially receive and store a sequential 16 bits derived from an 8-bit wide input stream 450. The generator 440 performs bitwise operations on the 16 stored in the bit circuit elements. The bitwise operation, again, is dictated by the CRC polynomial selected. Upon completion of the bitwise operations, the generator 440 outputs the generated 16 bits to the bit pattern generation logic 410. If the single error output 450 indicates a single bit error, then the OR gate 420 enables the errorred bit within the last 8 bits in the bit circuit element D67 to be corrected. If the double error output 450 indicates a 43-bit spaced double error, then the exclusive-OR logic gates 470A, 47B enable the bit error which is 43 bits behind the first bit to be corrected. The bits of the errored byte to be corrected are stored in two bit circuit element, D61 and D62. The first 3 bits, of the errorred byte, are stored in the D61 bit stream circuit element. The last 5 bits are stored in the bit stream circuit element D62.

Based on the circuit implementation shown in FIGS. 3, 4, and 5, the present invention is not limited to a single CRC polynomial. Rather, the present invention provides single error and double error detection and correction capabilities for both serial and parallel bit streams, in which a number of CRC polynomials may be utilized. The above bit error patterns are not exclusive to the GFP protocol. Any protocol which utilizes a fixed-length block may utilize the specific bit patterns to detect errors in portions of the block bit stream. 

1. A circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream, said circuit including at least two logical gates that determine if at least one of a plurality of conditions is present, each one of said plurality of conditions indicating at least one error in said bit stream and activation of at least one of said at least two logical gates changes a state of a specific bit in said bit stream to correct at least one error; wherein each one of said plurality of conditions is a specific bit pattern denoting a unique error pattern in said bit stream, each bit in said specific bit pattern resulting from bitwise operations between specific selected bits in said bit stream; wherein said plurality of conditions are divided into two groups, a first group which indicates a first type of error in said bit stream and a second group which indicates a second type of error in said bit stream; and wherein said at least two logical gates include a first logic gate associated with said first group and a second logic gate associated with said second group, such that said first logic gate is activated if a bit error pattern from said first group is detected and said second logic gate is activated if a bit pattern from said second group is detected.
 2. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first logic gate receives first logic gate inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations dictated by a CRC polynomial between specific selected bits in said bit pattern, such that said first logic gate has a predetermined output when said first logic gate inputs correspond to a bit pattern chosen from a group consisting of: Syndrome A.
 3. The circuit as claimed in claim 2, wherein said predetermined output is a binary number.
 4. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said second logic gate receives second logic inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations dictated by a CRC polynomial between specific selected bits in said bit pattern, such that said second logic gate has a predetermined output when said second logic inputs correspond to a bit pattern chosen from a group consisting of: Syndrome B.
 5. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said predetermined output is a binary number.
 6. The circuit as claimed in claim 4 wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 7. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 8. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 9. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 10. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an OR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 11. The circuit as claimed in claim 10, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 12. The circuit as claimed in claims 4, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an AND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 13. The circuit as claimed in claim 12, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 14. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NAND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 15. The circuit as claimed in claim 14, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 16. The circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NOR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 17. The circuit as claimed in claim 16, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 18. The circuit as claimed in claim 1 wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 19. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 20. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 21. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 22. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an OR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 23. The circuit as claimed in claim 22, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 24. The circuit as claimed in claims 1, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an AND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 25. The circuit as claimed in claim 24, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 26. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NAND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 27. The circuit as claimed in claim 26, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 28. The circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NOR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 29. The circuit as claimed in claim 28, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 30. A circuit for detecting and correcting errors in a bit stream, said circuit including: at least two logical gates that determine if at least one of a plurality of conditions is present, each one of said plurality of conditions indicating at least one error in said bit stream and activation of at least one of said at least two logical gates changes a state of a specific bit in said bit stream to correct at least one error; said circuit being adapted to detect a condition caused by a single error that has passed through a self-synchronous descrambler to produce a multiplied error in said bit stream; wherein said at least two logical gates include a first logic gate associated with said first group and a second logic gate associated with said second group, such that said first logic gate is activated if a bit error pattern from said first group is detected and said second logic gate is activated if a bit pattern from said second group is detected.
 31. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said first logic gate receives first logic gate inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations dictated by a CRC polynomial between specific selected bits in said bit pattern, such that said first logic gate has a predetermined output when said first logic gate inputs correspond to a bit pattern chosen from a group consisting of: Syndrome A.
 32. The circuit as claimed in claim 31, wherein said predetermined output is a binary number.
 33. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said second logic gate receives second logic inputs from bits resulting from bitwise operations dictated by a CRC polynomial between specific selected bits in said bit pattern, such that said second logic gate has a predetermined output when said second logic inputs correspond to a bit pattern chosen from a group consisting of: Syndrome B.
 34. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said predetermined output is a binary number.
 35. The circuit as claimed in claim 33 wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 36. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 37. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 38. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 39. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an OR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 40. The circuit as claimed in claim 39, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 41. The circuit as claimed in claims 33, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an AND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 42. The circuit as claimed in claim 41, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 43. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NAND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 44. The circuit as claimed in claim 43, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 45. The circuit as claimed in claim 33, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NOR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 46. The circuit as claimed in claim 45, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 47. The circuit as claimed in claim 30 wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 48. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 49. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 50. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates.
 51. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an OR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 52. The circuit as claimed in claim 51, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical AND gates.
 53. The circuit as claimed in claims 30, wherein said at least two logical gates includes an AND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 54. The circuit as claimed in claim 53, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical OR gates.
 55. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NAND gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 56. The circuit as claimed in claim 55, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NAND gates.
 57. The circuit as claimed in claim 30, wherein said at least two logical gates includes a NOR gate receiving an input from said first logic gate and said second logic gate such that a state of a specific bit in said bit pattern is changed if either said first logic gate or said second logic gate is activated.
 58. The circuit as claimed in claim 57, wherein said first logic gate and said second logic gate are both logical NOR gates. 